Source Rationale:This source tells about the easternmost beach
on D-Day, which was Gold Beach.This document is a general overview of the assault
that took place at Utah Beach.The British 3rd and French and British Commandos
attacked Gold Beach.The key to the success at Gold Beach was that the British
6th Airborne Division conducted a bold glider assault on bridges behind Gold Beach that helped in the success of
the amphibious assault.This source fits in with our other sources very well
because it gives a general overview of the attack at Gold Beach.This source
supports our thesis when we say that the Allies used strategic placement of troops to have Operation Overlord be a success.

The easternmost beach of the five landing areas of the Normandy
Invasion of World War II was GoldBeach.
It was assaulted on June 6, 1944 (D-Day of the invasion), by units of the British 3rd Division, with French and British commandos
attached. Shortly after midnight on D-Day morning, elements of the 6th Airborne Division, in a daring glider-borne assault,
seized bridges inland from the beach and also silenced artillery pieces that threatened the seaborne landing forces.

The area code-named SwordBeach occupied an 8-km (5-mile) stretch of the French coastline from Lion-sur-Mer on the west to
the city of Ouistreham, at the mouth of the OrneRiver, on the east. The area was dotted with vacation homes and tourist
establishments located behind a seawall. It was also approximately 15 km (9 miles) north of the hub city of Caen. All major roads in this sector of the Norman countryside ran through Caen, and it was a key city to both the Allies and the Germans for transportation and maneuver
purposes.

The Germans had fortified the area with relatively light defenses consisting of beach obstacles and
fortified emplacements in the sand dunes. For the most part, however, the defense of the beach was anchored on 75-mm guns
located at the coastal town of Merville, some 8 km (5 miles) to the east across the Orne River estuary, and on bigger 155-mm
guns located some 32 km (20 miles) farther east at Le Havre. A few miles inland from the beach were 88-mm guns capable of
supporting the machine guns and mortars that were placed in the dunes and villas and that constituted the Germans' first line
of defense. There were also antitank ditches and mines as well as huge concrete walls blocking the streets of the towns. Elements
of the German 716th Infantry Division—in particular, the 736th and 125th regiments—along with forces of the 21st
Panzer Division were in the vicinity and were capable of participating in defensive or offensive operations. To the east,
across the DivesRiver,
lay the 711th Division.

SwordBeach lay in the area of landing beaches assigned to the British Second Army, under
Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey. It was divided by Allied planners into four sectors named (from west to east)
Oboe, Peter, Queen, and Roger. Elements of the South Lancashire Regiment were to assault Peter sector on the right, the Suffolk
Regiment the centre in Queen sector, and the East Yorkshire Regiment Roger sector on the left. The objective of the 3rd Division
was to push across SwordBeach and pass
through Ouistreham to capture Caen and the important Carpiquet
airfield nearby. Attached commandos, under Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, had the mission of fighting their way off the beach and
pushing some 5 km (3 miles) inland toward the OrneRiver
and CaenCanal
bridges, where they were to link up with the airborne forces.

The invading forces landed at 0725 hours on D-Day and were greeted with moderate fire.
They were able to put out suppressing fire, and by 0800 hours the fighting was mostly inland. By 1300 the commandos had achieved
their most important objective: they had linked up with airborne troops at the bridges over the Orne waterways. On the right
flank the British had been unable to link up with Canadian forces from Juno Beach, and at 1600 hours tank forces and mechanized infantry units from the 21st Panzer Division
launched the only serious German counterattack of D-Day. The 192nd Panzer Grenadier Regiment actually reached the beach at
2000 hours, but the division's 98 panzers were halted by antitank weapons, air strikes, and Allied tanks themselves. The
counterattack was stopped.

At the end of the day, the British had landed 29,000 men and had taken 630 casualties.
German casualties were much higher; many Germans had been taken prisoner. However, for the Allies the optimistic objectives
of Caen and the Carpiquet aerodrome were still a long 5 km
away.

Paratroopers from the British 6th Airborne Division, Major General Richard Gale commanding, were to be landed at night onto the left flank of the Normandy Invasion
area in order to help isolate the battlefield for the seaborne invasion force that was scheduled to land on nearby SwordBeach at dawn.
The drop zones were labeled X, Y, N, K, and V. X and Y were glider landing zones near the two bridges over the Orne River
and the Caen Canal. V was a glider landing zone near the Merville battery, and N and K were on the Ranville ridge separating
the Orne and Dives rivers.

German forces in the area consisted of elements of the 716th Infantry Division.
The dominant defensive position was the battery at Merville, with four guns of undetermined size fortified in hard casemates.

The objectives of the 6th Airborne were to seize, intact, the critical bridges over
the Orne River and Caen Canal near the village of Bénouville, securing vital exit routes for the forces scheduled to land
at Sword Beach; to destroy the bridges over the Dives River, thus denying the Germans a route to the invasion area from the
east; to hold the dividing ridge between the Dives and the Orne from an expected German counterattack; and, finally, to destroy
the Merville battery, which threatened Sword Beach with its big guns.

At 0016 hours on D-Day, gliders containing Company D, 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire
Light Infantry, commanded by Major John Howard, touched down precisely on target at the bridges. Within 10 minutes and with
the loss of only two men dead, the daring coup de main placed both bridges in Allied hands. Howard's company thus became the
first attackers of the Normandy Invasion on French soil and the first unit to achieve its objective on D-Day. The CaenCanal bridge was soon immortalized as PegasusBridge, named after the insignia of
the 6th Airborne Division.

The silencing of the Merville battery fell to Lieutenant Colonel Terence Otway's
9th Battalion. The 9th, however, had a bad drop, and the attack began with only 150 men of the 750-man force. The daring attack
captured the battery at a cost of half the attacking force. The defending Germans paid a terrible price: only 22 men of the
200-man garrison were uninjured.

The rest of the 6th Airborne troopers continued to land throughout the night, although
many were scattered. Nevertheless, small parties found one another and managed to destroy five bridges over the Dives.

By morning, as the invasion force rolled ashore on SwordBeach, the left flank of the area was
indeed secure. By 1300 hours Howard's glider troops at the bridges had connected with elements of Lord Lovat's 1st Commando
Brigade. As evening fell on June 6, the 6th Airborne was generally in place and had achieved its objectives.